Half-centuries rarely finer than Kevin Sheedy's 50 years in football

Seven premierships as a player or coach. Eleven grand finals. A spot in two different clubs' teams of the century. A member of the AFL Hall of Fame. And when pre-season, state-of-origin and international rules matches are counted, more than 1000 games.

It's a mind-boggling roll call of honours. But when asked to name the single most important moment of his 50 years involved with VFL and AFL football, Kevin Sheedy nominates none of them.

Kevin Sheedy through the years.

The moment, for him, came the day in 1988 when, as coach of Essendon, he and recruiting manager Noel Judkins decided to convince the club to pursue the signature of a then 17-year-old kid from the Tiwi Islands called Michael Long.

"I thought that opened the gate," Sheedy says. And he knows the numbers backing his argument off by heart. "Until Michael, the VFL had had 28 indigenous players. Since then, we've had 330."

Advertisement

Long's story, and his importance as a cultural reference point for Australian football, needs no retelling here.

But it's one which has had a profound impact not just on the game, but on the values of one of the AFL's most famous sons, who on Thursday night at the MCG, will be alternately lauded and "roasted" when Essendon's Dick Reynolds Club holds a "50 years of Sheeds Celebration Dinner" at the MCG.

The night will include speeches from the likes of Francis Bourke and Terry Daniher, tributes from Kevin Bartlett and Eddie McGuire, while would-be rock star Simon Madden has even composed a song for the occasion. More than 30 members of Sheedy's extended family will be there, too.

They'll get plenty of laughs. But they'll also hear, more poignantly, how Long's story in particular has helped shape the thinking of one of football's great thinkers.

Sheedy had long been bewildered by the resistance by VFL clubs to recruiting indigenous players. The success at St Kilda of Nicky Winmar, a Noongar from south of Perth, hardened his resolve.

"You just wondered why people kept talking it down … 'They won't like this, they won't like that, they won't have the discipline, it will be too wet and muddy'," Sheedy says, rolling his eyes. "As if it doesn't rain in the Northern Territory."

The impact of and consequences from that one recruiting decision on Sheedy are clear in the passion with which he speaks about football as a driver for cultural change.

"We're learning to respect the first ever race to come here, we're just learning it. It's taken a long time. I mean, when 'Polly' Farmer was captain of Geelong, they weren't allowed to vote … unbelievable," he says, shaking his head.

It's the big picture issues which occupy a lot Sheedy's thinking, and which he's had more time to actively campaign about since finally hanging up the coaching clipboard with Greater Western Sydney at the end of 2013.

But his 50 years can't be neatly compartmentalised into playing, coaching and elder statesman.

Lateral, unorthodox thinking has been a Sheedy trademark right throughout that half-century, pivotal even to his decision to leave VFA club Prahran for Richmond without a clearance at the end of 1966 in the midst of a war between Association and the VFL, leading to him being banned for five years from any competition outside the league.

As a player without elite level skills but an enormous will and work ethic, Sheedy progressed during his 251games from premiership back-pocket to premiership half-forward (booting three goals in the first quarter of the 1973 grand final), to premiership ruck-rover the following year when Richmond achieved back-to-back flags.

Along the way, he'd revolutionised the art of handball, pioneering the "rocket", where the ball spun backwards off the fist, because of its greater accuracy.

As coach of Essendon he quickly established a reputation for unpredictability and flexibility. That would culminate in the Bombers' famous drought-breaking 1984 grand final win over Hawthorn.

With the Dons staring defeat in the face, he threw regular defenders Paul Weston, Peter Bradbury and Bill Duckworth, the man who'd end up winning the Norm Smith Medal, to the other end of the ground with immediate impact, engineering one of the most famous turnarounds in football history.

Those Essendon sides of the mid-'80s would become as legendary as the Richmond line-ups of which Sheedy was part. It's fair to say he played alongside some of the biggest names football has seen, the likes of Bartlett, Hart, Bourke and Barrot. He then coached names who'd become as big, Madden, Daniher and Watson.

Perhaps because their names and stories are so well-known, Sheedy has always loved to talk as much, if not more, about some of the lower-profile parts of those machines.

"Richmond had a lot of unsung heroes," he says. "I think Barry Richardson was one. And Paul Sproule is one of Richmond's most underrated players. He was amazing." Essendon? "Darren Williams was probably the most underrated. We thought he was our Johnny Platten or Craig Bradley.

"'Daisy' was one of the toughest and strongest players. If I did a combined Richmond-Essendon team, he'd be second rover to Bartlett, that's how much I rate him."

Who are the football people who have most influenced him? There are the obvious names. Tom Hafey, Graeme Richmond, Alan Schwab, the three heavyweights of the Tigers' glory days.

There's those who helped him get his start in football at Prahran, now more than 50 years ago. There's the board members and administrators at Essendon who got him to the club as a rookie coach for the 1981 season, then stood by him for a remarkable 27-season tenure, Colin Stubbs, Brian Donohoe, Neville Gay, Lionel Krongold, Ron Evans, Graeme McMahon, Bruce Heymanson.

As Sheedy rattles off that list, you can't help but notice how many of the names are no longer with us, former Bomber president Stubbs passing away as recently as last month. "That's what happens," he sighs. "You wouldn't want to ask a 20-year-old what Kevin Sheedy did in his life, they probably wouldn't have a clue."

Sheedy has three grandchildren now he'll have to fill in about that as well. There's another milestone looming, too. "My life's gone so quick. I'm turning 70 at the end of the year and I just cannot believe that," he smiles.

Thursday night, though is a chance to soak up the enormous stores of goodwill towards one of the game's most enduring figures. "I'll just go and listen, have a little to eat, because I don't want to put weight on, and just have a good time with lots of friends."

They, like the football world, are grateful. Not only for what Sheedy has given the game, but what he's contributed to issues more important even than that.

Rohan Connolly, a senior football writer for The Age and radio broadcaster with sports radio station 1116 SEN, has been covering the game since 1983. A multi-AFL Media Association award-winner known for his passion and love of the game, he analyses the AFL for the newspaper and contributes a blog and weekly video, "Footy Fix", for The Age's football website, Real Footy.